Byron Dorgan: “Let me describe the amendment with respect to the metric conversion. This country, some many years ago, decided that it…”

“Let me describe the amendment with respect to the metric conversion. This country, some many years ago, decided that it wanted to proceed to enforce the utilization of the metric system of measurement in our country. I do not have any strong feelings one way or the other about the metric system of measurement. I do have some feelings about the Federal Government's enforcement of it in a manner that really defies common sense. We can, it seems to me, get to the point where the Federal Government says we shall move toward the metric system of measurement and we will enforce that by requiring the Federal Government to be the leader. What we do at the Federal level is tell the Department of Transportation we would like the Department to go out in the country and tell all the States to take down all their green highway signs that say how many miles it is to the next rest stop or how many miles it is to the next off ramp on the highway.”